You Know It's True
by TutorGirlml
Summary: She won't let herself be comforted; there's too much at stake if she loses control again. After all, Emma can't bear to lose him too... (A post-ep 4x07 one shot)


_Okay, so after this past Sunday's episode, I couldn't help feeling heartache for Emma like I've never felt before. I kept wishing that there had been time for one more scene, in which Killian finds her where she has run and convinces her he has no reason to fear her and that everything is going to be alright. This is my attempt to appease my poor shipper heart that can't wait until this Sunday to see Emma be comforted. It begins with a flashback to Emma's youth. I'm still not sure I am totally pleased with it, so feedback there would be much appreciated!_

_Enjoy! (And of course I don't own them!)_

"You Know It's True"

By: TutorGirlml

The memory washes over Emma Swan in sudden waves…

"_No! Stop it! I won't!" she hears her own younger self screaming brokenly, even before the picture materializes behind her eyes. There are tears in her voice, the words ragged with strained emotion as she cries out. Blurred images swim foggily as the flashback continues. She is standing in a bare, beige-painted room, furnished with only a bed, desk, and window letting in a sweet Spring breeze. Yet, though the space is light and open, she feels increasingly panicked and upset. As things come clearer, she realizes that she is not alone in the room, and that the two women with her are the source of her distress._

_Standing before her is both the woman she now knows as the Snow Queen and the young girl who saved her in the grocery then broke her just like everyone else had. However, despite the hurt and betrayal Emma had felt upon learning Lily __**wasn't **_ _like her, had been leading her on, was no more trustworthy than anyone else she had known – she __**had not **__wanted this. Emma can see that the woman – Sarah Fischer – was blocking the door to bar their exit. She was in the room with the two girls, her presence seeming to captivate and take over the entire space. The air around the three of them was crackling in the way that Emma had grown used to in her youth, but never understood – the tension of her unrecognized power which had often come just before something happened that she couldn't explain._

_Lilly is crying, great heaving gasps of air sucked into her lungs as she whimpers and pleads, shaking in fear. "No, Emma, please don't hurt me. I'm sorry I lied to you…"_

_Emma shakes her head, still confused by what is happening. What is this place and how are they all even in the same room? She met Lily years after she had been fostered by Ms. Fischer. Hadn't she? With whole chunks of her memories missing, she doesn't know anymore, and it only makes her frustration worse. She only wants to get away from the sting of finding herself different and alone once again. Only now does she register that her hand is stretched out toward the other girl, objects on the desk behind Lily are quaking and rolling, and Lily seems unable to move from her spot. Emma's eyes slide over to find the woman who had soothed her night terrors, hung her art on the refrigerator, and actually made her feel as if she had a home for the first time since the Swans when she was just a toddler, trying to understand. What she sees now though frightens her. Ms. Fischer is nodding encouragement, as if she wants Emma to lash out, wants her to strike. Those cold, calculating eyes are avid, her face completely focused on the drama as it unfolds._

"_What's happening?!" Emma pleads, gesturing to Lily and asking her former guardian plaintively. "How did she get here? What do you think I'm going to do?" Her rational mind inserts itself again, wailing, 'Did this really happen?'_

"_It's alright, Dear. I brought her to you," the older woman answers calmly. "She needs to know that she can't get away with lying to you. Go ahead and show her what will happen when she betrays someone she claims to care about."_

"_No! I don't want to hurt her!" Emma yells, but her hands shake violently and fiery light shoots out, blinding them all with its brightness for a moment. She has no concentrated goal in mind; she doesn't intend to do anything to her peer, the one person she had finally thought would want to be her friend. She only wants the pressure, the demands, the confusion and hurt constraining her from all sides to stop. Her eyes squeeze shut, trying to block out Ms. Fischer and Lily both, but when she opens them again, Emma is only more horrorified. Her gasp is involuntary, unable to believe what she is seeing. Where Lily had been standing, pleading and desperate, there is nothing but empty space. The other girl has simply vanished._

_Emma's foster mother gives a secretive little smile to the rattled teen before her. "Well, dear, that wasn't quite what I had in mind," she murmurs thoughtfully, tilting her head and studying Emma as if she is a lab experiment that has not produced the chemical reaction she expected. "But, my, you are powerful, aren't you?"_

_Emma shakes her head wildly, panic rising within her again, but there is no explanation or comfort to be had. She wants to deny what has just happened. A living, breathing person is just – __**gone **__– and she made them disappear!_

"_Unfortunately, you still aren't ready yet…" the Snow Queen muses as she steps closer, even as Emma backs frantically away until she hits the desk behind her and can go no farther. "You are of no use to me yet. Not until you're ready to listen…to do what you must…but I can wait…"_

_The icy blond waves her hand vaguely in front of Emma's distraught face, the room and all her surroundings fade as the memory ends…._

_~~~00~~~~00~~~~00~~~_

_Search your heart,_

_Search your soul,_

_When you find me there, _

_you'll search no more…_

"Emma!" a muffled voice sounds, along with a _thump_ near her head, startling the Savior from the daze she has slipped into. Bolting upright, Emma Swan sucks in a sharp breath and glances around herself quickly, trying to place where she is and what is happening.

The pounding continues, and the voice warms her as it calls again desperately, "Emma! Love, please let me in! I know you are not dangerous! Let me help you!" The voice reaches out to her, tempting her to respond and accept, even as she is still trying to get her bearings and register its familiarity after the weird mix of half-remembered realities in her dream.

Finally, Emma places that she is in her Bug, stiffly frozen in her spot behind the wheel from sitting there for so long. She is out overlooking the bluff, where she had fled when… _Oh…._when it all fell apart. She had been gazing down on the town she has finally begun to see as her own, thinking that she is by herself once more, replaying the mistrust and fear in her mother's eyes, the dazed pain her father had tried to hide, and the determined way Killian had reached for her, in denial to how her haywire powers had changed things. All that made sense was that she must have cried herself into exhaustion in a way she has not allowed since she was a bleeding, bereft teenager cuffed to a hospital bed in a prison infirmary watching the little boy she had held inside her carried out of her life forever.

Forcing a steadying breath and hoping the dried tear tracks on her cheeks aren't visible, Emma turns her head to look at Killian Jones outside her driver's side door, hand pressed against the window, eyes fervently begging for her to allow him entrance.

She doesn't want to do it; in the end, nearness to her will only get him hurt. Killian was only saved from injury earlier by her father's quick thinking and self-sacrificial nature. She _won't _risk him. Oddly, Emma doesn't allow herself to entertain the irony of trying to protect a notorious pirate who has already survived for centuries, nor the reality that the only real pain she can cause him worse than what he has already withstood in his long life is withdrawing herself from him again after how far they have come to find each other.

She shakes her head, trying to avoid his eyes and the wealth of emotion in them. She has long since acknowledged that Killian can read her as well as she reads him. He knows the terror and shame washing over her, and it physically pains him not to touch her, to hold her, to be able to help her.

Fortunately or not, Emma can't decide which, Killian won't go away. He won't give up. She knows his determination will be as unflagging as it has been in anything else since their first meeting. With a sigh, she finally moves shaking fingers to unlock the doors of her car, giving him a nod through the glass to let him know he can join her, and hoping she will not hurt him as soon as he breaches the metal barrier she has hidden behind.

Her body is practically vibrating with barely restrained tension as her eyes follow her Captain's long, powerful strides when he hurries around the front of the car to the passenger side quickly as he can. He grips the handle in his good hand, and is jerking the door open to slide in next to her before she can take back her decision and warn him way. Drawing in a sharp, ragged breath, Killian reaches out to pull Emma to him recklessly, as soon as he is in his seat.

Emma lets out a strangled, frightened sound of alarm, and she scrambles away, pushing her back into the doorframe and throwing a hand up between them. A shiver runs through her, and fear screws her eyes shut, petrified that she has thrown some bolt of magic out at him.

Killian is undaunted; he slows his motions, realizing not to startle her, but he licks his lips in serious concentration and eases toward her ever so slightly. He approaches her as he would an injured wild animal – with caution and praying he will not cause her to bolt. The pirate's breath catches in his throat at how truly injured she has been by a carelessly admonishing word and niggling doubts.

His love shrinks in on herself, trying to be smaller and widen the gap he seeks to close. Yet, her eyes never leave him. She is stunned by the care and devotion she reads within his gaze. There is nothing else – no fear, no disgust – and Emma clings to that more than she wishes to admit. "K-Killian," she stammers, shaking her head at him when he once again tries gently to reach out and touch her. She is sniffling, both from cold and from unshed tears, her nose frozen and stuffy and teeth chattering from sitting for hours in her ratty, old, poorly insulated car on what has rapidly become a truly cold winter night. "Please…just stay back. If – if I hurt you…"

He tsks derisively, dismissing the very idea as if it is ridiculous. "Come now, Swan. Enough tormenting yourself. I know better than to fear you."

The quiet rumbling of his voice vibrates through Emma's consciousness, soothing her against her better judgment. She wants to let go, to lean on Killian's shoulder and be held in his arms, but she can't.

"Y-you don't know…w-what I might do," she gets out in a garbled voice, feeling pathetic and out of control. She has to make him to show a bit of self-preservation and get out of her path of destruction. "I blew a hole in the side of the station!" she yells in frustration. "I nearly took David out with that pole!"

Killian sighs, never giving an inch, refusing to move away. "Darling…" he whispers, not going any further, emotion choking his voice before he finally whispers again. "Emma…"

His eyes are so blue and open that Emma simply cannot look away. The truth is there in them, inches from her from, as his good hand traces down her cheek, then cups the back of head, pulling her in until their foreheads rest on each other, sharing the same breath. Those blue orbs speak volumes; that she can trust herself, that she can control it, and that he truly considers her his Savior. Even if something did happen to him because of her magic, he wouldn't regret being at her side. She brought his life back from the depths, the way he sees it, and he won't allow her to sink now.

Emma finally allows herself his comfort, biting her lip as she hopes and prays she doesn't do something else beyond her control. It still doesn't seem right; her powers have never escaped her as they did today, and she didn't know how to bring them back. Her family had been right to fear her…

As if sensing her begin to tense again, Killian brushes a loose strand of hair back over her shoulder, with his hook in that way she will never admit she has loved since the beanstalk. Then, his hand comes to rest warmly over her heart. "Emma," he murmurs soothingly, "you have to calm down, Sweetheart. I know that you will conquer this – whatever it is. You never fail."

A laugh snorts out of her at that, when her pirate echoes his words first given to her in Neverland's jungle. She has never spoken it out loud, but they had kept her going, kept her little flame of hope from completely guttering out when she was desperate and pushed to the limit…like she was now.

"But if I hurt anyone else… If Henry…or you were…"

He shakes his head, threading their fingers together, then bringing their entwined hands to his lips to kiss her knuckles. "It won't happen," he states fervently. "I know you, Swan."

"You can't know that."

"Ah, that's what you think, Darling." He smirks playfully, sensing that he has gained ground and pushing it to make her smile. His dark eyebrow waggles ridiculously, and then she is grinning in spite of herself. "You're the Savior, Love. You have saved me so many times already that a spot of danger is a small price to pay in return."

"Oh yeah?" she scoffs, finally snuggling into his side as fully as she can while in a car seat and tucking her head into his chest, relishing his warmth. "Think so, do you Pirate?"

"You know that I do," he answers softly, resting his chin on the top of her head and breathing in the scent of her golden hair. Emma breathes out carefully, finally feeling some of the panic and tension leaving her as she trusts in his love. There is so much more underneath what he says audibly, vows that she can feel in every touch and every kiss and every look he gives her. Vows that she is choosing to believe. She opens her heart, lets herself love him back, knowing there is nothing he will not do to aid her, to protect, to be there at her side, and she finally closes her tired eyes.

"_You know it's true_

_Everything I do_

_I do it for you…"_


End file.
